


the language of friendship is not words

by therestisdetail



Category: Boardwalk Empire
Genre: M/M, Magical Realism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-09
Updated: 2020-02-22
Packaged: 2021-02-28 06:01:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 5,697
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22629037
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/therestisdetail/pseuds/therestisdetail
Summary: They're friends. It's a simple sentence to say, which is the only time that any of it is simple.[team ny magical realism au]
Relationships: Meyer Lansky/Lucky Luciano
Comments: 13
Kudos: 17





	1. an introduction

**Author's Note:**

  * For [crimsonxflowers (littlelansky)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/littlelansky/gifts).



  
"You've been criminal associates since childhood. You-"

That's what the kid they snatched away starts saying, bluffing hard and scrambling to sound tough. He should keep his mouth shut; he doesn't matter, all they really want is a trade.

"Friends," Meyer corrects easy, "friends since childhood."

"So whatever your uncle does to Benny," Charlie says, and means it, "that's going to reflect on you."

The kid is in far, far out of his depth. He doesn't understand. He couldn't.

*

  
They're friends. It's a simple sentence to say, which is the only time that any of it is simple.

Before that, they're going to be friends, even if they aren't that yet. Before anything, they're children playing rough and cheating at games for a few cents extra in back alleys, just children. Charlie throws a punch at a kid who shouldn't get up from it, but does, hits back and gives him the kind of hell he has quite honestly always been waiting for. Honesty is the key; there's been nothing between them then or since that isn't raw, stupid, and honest.

Meyer comes a package deal along with another kid, almost feral and his opposite in every kind of way. Meyer puts fires out; Benny starts them. Charlie is not sure what role he plays in all this except that he wants to be there with them, and Meyer looks at him like he's some kind of special because of it. It makes no sense, but the first time Meyer throws a punch for him is also the first time Benny squints like he's thinking, then later when things go to hell he shoots a guy who was maybe aiming at Charlie.

"What am I supposed to do now?" Charlie asks, absently and honestly, when they're somewhere private but he is still tasting blood. He's survived a lot but now he's here, they've done something serious, and he knows he could be someone. He might have potential. It's what everyone tells him the signs say. It's hard to believe it.

"Be you," Meyer tells him quiet. "Be in charge."

"Be me?"

"Be you and be in charge," Meyer tells him firmly, "because I cannot fucking stand all the rest of them." Benny hums in reluctant agreement.

Charlie walks back into the world where everyone knows there are signs on him, and figures maybe he's the best worst option, or maybe just the last resort. He doesn't mind, because he also has that touch of confidence that no one else is ever going to come for his crown and win. They won't win, because he has Meyer and Benny on his side, and that's a hell of a thing.

Anyway, they're friends. Since childhood. And that's kind of the whole damn point.

*

It starts at lunch, and not even a particularly interesting one. It should be nothing. Business as usual, putting up a certain front, playing a part. He can't even remember what he was asking for, or demanding, this time. But everything right now feels like war and even these little things, they're different. Meyer at his back, and - yeah, that makes it easier.

A polite cough, and Meyer stands, hand to his mouth.

"My apologies," he says, nods and looks people straight in the eye. "If I may-"

Charlie does not want to do this without him but he knows, as sure as anything, Meyer would not leave without good reason.

"Of course," he says, and throws in a careless wave, a winning smile at those still at the table.

Afterwards, when deals are made, he all but falls over himself running to find if Meyer stayed in the building. He did, he's still here. Meyer puts a hand at Charlie's shoulder and holds it hard, says that he's sorry with an absent kind of calm even as he wipes at his face again and it comes away with red against his knuckles.

"You're bleeding," Charlie says, a bit panicked.

"No," Meyer says, in spite of all available evidence. He looks up at Charlie. "But Benny is."

Oh.

Fuck.

*

There are rules. Meyer didn't learn them; he likes books but he doesn't like limits.

There are rules. About how you are, when you love like this. How you give pieces of you away. The power that comes and goes when you do.

Meyer has given more to people who deserved less, he's experienced, he's ready.

Benny has never even looked at anyone else.

Charlie is exquisitely broken and braver than he should be, and Meyer will burn the world before he allows anyone to take advantage of that.

There's a rulebook, probably. They don't learn it. They have more important things to worry about.

*

Charlie hangs up on him, and Benny can't stop smiling, because it almost makes all of this worth it.

"Why?" demands someone, someone with a gun.

Benny really cannot stop smiling. "He's an asshole," he replies lightly, licking blood off his own lip. "What do you want from me?"

Also, Charlie calls back.

Benny kind of loves and also hates that he knew Charlie would, kind of hates how it feels. Something off-centre but there, certain and warm. It's fucking infuriating.

"Hey Charlie, what's cooking?"

"You alright?"

"Sure," he draws out every syllable. Everything hurts, he figures he's owed a little. "They took me to see the diving horse and everything. Later on, we're getting cotton candy."

"I told you to be careful, didn't I?"

"I've got a bullet in my leg, you gonna hock me now?"

He really is an asshole, but Benny hears him tell Thompson they'll see each other at a funeral and even though he is the one tied to a chair he never feels anything less than safe.

  
*

Maybe somewhere else, with other people, there would have been a meeting about what they were going to do. This is less of that, and more them both convincing each other not to act too fast.

"I told him to stay protected," Charlie growls. Meyer rolls his eyes.

"Protected is within where we marked. Are you surprised?"

"I'm fucking concerned!"

"Benny's grave is not going to be some fucking back alley in Atlantic City," Meyer snarls, furious and barely controlled enough that Charlie realises he's being told something, even if accidentally, even if Meyer doesn't quite know it. "Benny's grave is going to be lit up bright for a fucking hundred years after we're all gone."

"Mey-" Charlie says soft.

Meyer shutters closed, expression blank and leaning away. "I don't know what I meant by that," he says tiredly. "It was just a- I haven't been sleeping right."

He's been having dreams, then. Since war started. He's not the only one. 

"Mey," Charlie says again, and this time Meyer looks at him. "What's yours is mine. Yeah?"

Meyer almost smiles.

"Yes."

"Well," Charlie says, reaching for a drink. "We gotta go get something that's ours, then."

Almost, not quite. But almost.

"And how do we do that?"

"Take something that's his," Charlie says. "He's got a kid, or nephew or- I don't care, we go take that. Then we talk, and we win."

Meyer smiles, just a bit.

"We win?"

"Yeah," Charlie says, reaching for Meyer's hands. He plays the one card he's got, not sure himself if he's being wry or serious. "Because I got all these signs on me telling me so."

Meyer takes his hands and traces his face, soft and careful. A bit tired. "I don't expect you to fix this."

Charlie was born under fortunate signs, marked from birth, and everyone has always known it. Meyer is the only person who has looked at them and turned away, not expecting an answer and not trying to drag anything from him. Well, Benny never gave a shit, but then again, he never really does, not about anything.

"We win," Charlie tells Meyer, "because nothing else fucking matters."

*

They're friends. And that's all it is.

It's simple enough to say, and powerful enough to have Thompson on his knees and not knowing why. It means Charlie nodding his head and ending a conversation with all the confidence of a bullet instead of a word, it means Charlie is ready, or at least, the people that love him are. It means all kind of things, as long as they can pull it off.

It feels kind of good, as well.

It really does.


	2. a realisation

  
Benny is in trouble. Benny kind of loves and also hates that he knew Charlie will call back, kind of hates how it feels. Something off-centre but there, certain and warm. It's fucking infuriating. Benny knows because he saw where it started.

*

There's rules. Meyer doesn't know them all yet, largely because he doesn't give a shit. But he does right now.

"Fuck," Charlie says, touching at the mark on his eye and trying, trying so very hard, not to sound like he's scared. "Guess it's over, Mey. They got me."

He smiles, like there might be a joke in there somewhere. Like he's trying to make this easy. "They got me good."

Meyer is going to find out who and make sure they do not die quickly, but that is a concern for later. This is now.

Charlie woke with a mark across his eye and face, dark and obvious. A call to hell by someone not doing business by the rules.

Meyer blames himself; he should have known they'd be this desperate.

A call to hell that cost a lot, he's sure, but he doesn't give fuck what it cost them. He only cares about the hound.

"Hell is coming," Charlie says soft. "Means they're taking us seriously. Taking you seriously. It's okay."

"Like fuck it is," Meyer says, and he's talking to the sky and not at Charlie.

*

Benny doesn't wear anything. Jewelry gets in the way of doing things.

Meyer wouldn't, if he chose. But his mother is holding onto a star of david like it matters; Charlie is begging him to wrap this one cross around his wrist because Charlie wore it when he was confirmed and he's drunk and so certain that it matters. 

Meyer wouldn't if he chose. But it's no choice at all.

Charlie wears everything that he's supposed to, more probably, and hopes he'll be forgiven in the end that he only believes in half of it. If even that.

*

Someone calls on hell to deal with Charlie, because apparently they can't. Charlie would take a moment to appreciate that if he wasn't so fucking scared.

"It's okay," he says, with the wildly calm invincibility of terror. "They just want me. You're both going to be okay."

Something breaks the door in.

"It's okay." he repeats, kind of numbly. "You should go."

They run, but Benny does not go, because Meyer does not go. Also, Benny shoots.

"Fuck you," Benny shouts. The bullets don't stop anything, but it's nice. It's nice he tried. Meyer will tell him so, later.

Meyer calls for Benny to fall back or away, and drags Charlie out the door as he does, shooting too. The hound slows only for show.

"It's four blocks," Charlie says desperate, trying to make Meyer let go, "I don't even know if I'm welcome."

"Fuck you," Meyer says, certainly and roughly. The nearest church is a four blocks away. Charlie smiles. It really is okay. He wants Meyer to know that.

"Fuck you," Meyer tells him, and the building he drags Charlie in to Charlie doesn't recognise.

  
*

  
A synagogue is a place for many things. No one necessarily expected this.

Meyer comes through the door first, dragging Charlie with him. Benny follows, still shooting.

The hellhound comes after. Benny keeps shooting.

"This place is-" the Rabbi starts, but Meyer has no patience for it.

"This is my place," He says, eyes to the ceiling, utterly furious. No for an answer will not be accepted. "And here, things that are mine are safe."

The hellhound takes a bullet and yelps. Benny never stopped.

Meyer doesn't leave the practical side of things to anyone else; Benny stops for a moment and the monster gets close, so Meyer grabs it and breaks its neck before anyone can say a word. He can still feel it. He will never be sorry.

A synagogue is a place for many things. No one necessarily expected this. But if god visited, they think maybe he or she left victorious.

The kids did what kids do, and protected each other.

*

Charlie, marked for destiny and then marked for death, defies both, in his own kind of way.

"Heavy is the head," he says quiet, and reaches for them.

They do not hold the crown yet, but knowing they will is equally heavy. He doesn't want to wear it alone.

"Are we still us?"

"Yes," Meyer says abrupt, whose head has been burdened longer than he wants either of them to know.

"Yeah," Benny says. What he means is up to fate, and the future.

They both say yes, though.

It's fucking infuriating, loving like this, but there isn't anything to replace it. There's nothing like this.


	3. a moment without questions

  
They say Charlie was born to be king. 

Charlie isn't quite sure about that.

The proof of it, it seems, is denying anything to those he loves most. They're not his people, they can't be. That's how it works.

"It's business," Meyer says, always taking the hardest blows so Charlie doesn't have to. "Leave it."

"Nah," he says soft, because fuck that. He knows he's about to start trouble.

He walks into a room of men that only acknowledge him as king because it suits them right now, and smiles. They'll learn. "This is Meyer," he says. Kings are the slaves of history, sure. But he knows he's not doing this alone. He couldn't. And if Meyer's not heard, they're all too stupid to be worth his time.

"He's with me."

Meyer sits at his right when he speaks, and it starts trouble, but also solves more problems than it starts. He knew it would. He'd still do the same over even if it didn't.

The king raises a glass. Everyone else follows. Whether they like it or not.

  
*

Charlie is selling a message he doesn't care about. He's done worse for less.

"People are losing things all over. Some guy, he's a millionaire, next thing you know he's sellin' Chiclets in the street."

True, that.

Narcsisse sends him off, but he's not lying. He doesn't do that. Not right now. But he's done worse for less.

Life has no guarantees. He sends the message because it was what he was paid to do.

  
*

  
It's not uncommon, exactly, people still reach for his hand and ask. Sometimes he allows it.

"You were marked?"

"I am still," Charlie says. Even when he smiles and means it, it's lopsided. He can feel the scar. "They just ain't got me yet."

No one needs to know, how scared he was, on the floor of that synagogue, trying to choke past the fear to say it was only there for him. He tells the story when it fits, but usually it doesn't. He tries to remember everything as it happened, and be honest.

He's pretty sure he said to run. He's pretty sure Meyer didn't give a fuck.

They say Charlie was born to be king. Charlie isn't quite sure about that.

He knows he's chosen, though. By gods that are his and maybe ones that aren't. He's not sure, of course, but he has his suspicions. He can't see how someone else wasn't looking kindly at him. He's grateful for it.

"You were marked?"

"I was," he says. "But here I fucking still am. Any other questions?"

  
*

  
It doesn't matter. No one comes to tell if you are chosen, or if you mean anything. You have to work that out yourself.

"Well," Meyer says reasonably. "Not entirely by yourself."

Benny snorts and rolls his eyes, bored already.

"Shut up," Charlie says, without even thinking. Pours Meyer another drink, smiles slightly.

This is what they are. This is who they are. And have been for a long time.

"This table, it's round for a reason: 'Cause no one sits at the head. There's no boss - there's seven bosses. A commission. Five families in New York, plus Buffalo and Chicago."

So declares the king.

Kings aren't real, not anymore. A lot of people don't know that yet.

"Mey," Charlie asks, when they are alone. "What have I done?"

"Something," Meyer tells him, "You've sure as hell done something."

"Oh," Charlie says. "But it won't last."

Benny grins from where he's perched on the sidewalk, gun still warm. Business was also done today. "Bet you on that?"

Charlie raises an eyebrow. "Hold on," he says. "If I'm right, I doubt I'll be around to collect."

Benny grins wide. "Yeah," he says, "you should probably just give me the money now."

"Give him whatever," Meyer says, and only Charlie knows he's still haunted with dreams. "Just to shut him up."

Charlie gives Benny two hundred dollars, just because. He doesn't have the bad dreams, but he knows about them.

*

"He's wrong," Meyer says quiet.

"I know, I-"

"He's wrong." Meyer says. Real quiet.

Oh.

"How long?"

"I don't know," Meyer says. He reaches to take the money from Charlie that he's supposed to be counting, and ends up holding his hands instead. "I know I saw us young, and old. Saw you and me. Once and future."

The things he doesn't mention hang heavy.

Charlie gives Benny two hundred dollars, just because, and doesn't care how he spends it. He has bad dreams now too.

  
*

  
They say, when they look back on the literature, that a king must ride with his knights to defend what was, and the dream of what could be.

That's a very romantic way of looking at it.

Charlie thinks they got it all wrong. He's not the one who has dreams, anyways. But he knows that the knights are important, and he can name every one.

"I know what I am asking-" he starts, talking to Benny and Meyer and Pinky and Tonino and everyone. All of them. He doesn't have to continue. He would have had to convince them, about a year ago.

Not now. Everyone here knows him too well, even when he explains this shit the wrong order.

War is here, against him and against everything they sell, what they do, and in a time when they have seen police knocking down doors on nothing at all.

"Shit," he says. "This is going to hurt. Are you in?"

He really never read the rulebook, or the literature, and he doesn't know better. He offers himself honest and without anything to back him except for his other, a quiet presence, always. Him and Meyer, because that's how it goes.

They say Charlie was born to be king.

"Are you in?" He asks.

They really weren't wrong.


	4. he is with us

  
At eleven years old, Benny tries to get through a door he shouldn't. He knows he shouldn't, because it's written on there. Carved in, actually. Bold, obvious.

Thirty seconds later he is swearing blue murder with burns on his hands, and that's so much less than what was written in the symbols.

Meyer has to half pin him down to get him to stay still with his hands under cold water.

"You're supposed to be dead," Meyer snarls, and there's layers to it. Frustration, anger, and yeah a good share of that is aimed at Benny. Something else, sharper and underneath, that isn't. 

"I told you not to fucking touch it," Meyer says. "If I say it, it's real. So believe it."

"I know it's real," Benny snaps back. "Doesn't mean I need to go and fucking believe in it too."

He kind of wishes he'd just kept to swearing. This is it; what always happens with people that interest him. The moment they tell him he's crazy, the moment their interest turns to fear, or even fucking worse, to pity. He hates this moment.

Meyer looks up. 

"I never thought about it like that," he says.

"You're still a fucking idiot," he also says.

He doesn't let go of Benny for a full twenty minutes, making him keep the burns under cold water.

  
*

There are rules. Things everyone knows. God, however you call them, might not be here, but their leftover declarations remain in vague enough terms that it's a free for all after that. Humans being humans.

There are very old and established rules.

Benny thinks that's just fucking lazy. Absence is powerful.

Benny walks the street every day, he sees everyone else.

Pity comes first.

Jealousy after.

He feels a few other things. It's complicated.

Absence is powerful. He ain't ever going to pass on that. It's pretty good.

  
*

Benny thinks it's lazy that no one comes to correct him, so maybe he's right. Maybe there's nothing out there. Maybe he's the one that's right, about all of this.

"Shut up, something came told me," Meyer says, as blunt and sudden as he ever is. Taking Benny's hands when things went wrong again because Benny pulled the trigger before he thought about it. Taking his hands and shielding him without thinking. "Fuck it, go do what you were doing."

He's never admitted out loud what he believes in, but more than once he pushes Benny down when Benny wants to keep shooting and they both live because of it.

Also, he doesn't blame Benny.

"I know this isn't what we said. But-"

Meyer dreams. And worries. Meyer dreams and worries. Meyer meets someone. Benny is just here for the ride.

"Oh," Benny says, fond and a little eager. "What does 'but' look like?"

"His name is Charlie."

"He's going to be important."

Yeah, sure.

No really. Okay, sure. He knows he doesn't sound like he means it, but he does.

He's been in this fight a while. Benny thinks all of this is lazy and they should dream bigger, and has burns on his hands from trying regardless, but also has more wins than he has losses.

Meyer likes math, which offers an answer to most things. Meyer likes Benny more than that answer, which is saying something.

"Be careful," he says, and yeah, he was always saying that when they were just kids.

"This is Benny," Meyer says, in places where people that should matter are disappointingly distracted by the freely available alcohol, where they are serious and unimaginative. Those kind of times.

"He's with me."

*

  
Benny likes playing games with the new kids. 

"Red," he says, serious as the grave. "You got something red on you?"

"Green."

"Blue."

"Gold, anything gold at all."

"Five," he says, "seven and nine. Remember that," taps the kid's temple and nods wisely, doesn't explain.

Charlie is awake, and Meyer barely is, resting against him. Benny takes the vengeance he needs for that fact being true and very carefully puts it somewhere else, tomorrow, where it will hurt other people. He can be fucking careful sometimes.

"Hey," he says.

"Hey," Charlie says with a smile. "I got three guys wearing blue ties today. Didn't match anything else they were wearing."

"You'd notice," Benny says, reflexive, and yeah, also accurate, but not intended to be particularly unkind.

"You believe this stuff, Ben?" Charlie asks. This is the worst thing about Charlie. Not only is he Meyer's, but he also asks these things, and means it when he does. Fuck, is Benny between a rock and a hard and stupid place.

"No," Benny says. "But they do. So that's interesting."

"Okay," Charlie says. "Yeah, okay."

Meyer, awake the whole time, says nothing.

"Okay?" Charlie asks, not long after but entirely separate, business being done. Reaching to fix Benny's collar, a presumtion that he's laid out other men for. "You got it? I can send a couple guys with you. Your call."

"I got it," Benny says, with a grin. He does.

This is the worst thing about Charlie. He is Meyer's, which means he gives Benny things he asked for and also things he didn't, and despite himself Benny cares a bit. Fuck.


	5. the ignorance kind of bliss

  
Nothing is kind, that's the first lesson. Arnold says something honest, in passing, which Meyer can only presume was an error of judgement. 

"It doesn't matter if I'm right," he says, "it matters if they think I am."

Arnold, with all his charm and connections and his fingers on pretty little cards, says a whole lot more. Meyer, who has none of that, only dreams, says nothing. He's learned better than to speak up.

Arnold tells him, with feigned softness, that he has the mind for this but not the touch. Arnold's eyes were always on Charlie.

Arnold plays for three days and dies from a shot Meyer dreamed about nine years ago.

Meyer holds on to Charlie's wrist at the funeral to hold him steady and hates himself for being just a little jealous that at least Charlie's father left scars that show.

  
*

  
Time isn't kind.

Neither is Meyer.

He tries to explain it like that, once.

Benny, tucked under his arm, rolls his eyes and says something unrepeatable, and Charlie is a warm weight beneath him that barely shifts to pull closer and laugh.

"Shut up," he tells them both, only pretending to be irritated.

*

In trying times, they say that they make a man from clay whose power comes from words, and he is unforgiving.

Meyer explains it better that way.

He puts a coat on Benny the first time he goes out with pockets full of something to sell, and outside the door there is noise so he goes and puts a bullet in two men who didn't understand that Benny is his, grabs Benny by the collar and hauls him back towards good sense and living out the night.

Hell comes for Charlie. Meyer isn't agreeable to that. Charlie, marked for a death that they denied and still making jokes while he's black and blue, suggests calling a city-wide meeting right then and there.

"Let them see," Charlie says, four drinks in. "Let them see what they couldn't do."

Meyer, who can still feel the hellhound's spine every time he closes his fingers, shrugs.

"Do they need to?"

"They already know," Charlie admits, five drinks in now and seeming like he might betray himself and say something sincere. "But they oughta meet you."

"Yes," Meyer says.

A meeting now is too much and too soon, but Charlie is right. In due course, it will happen.

  
*

Time isn't- it's probably not kind. 

Meyer's just a fucking kid, he doesn't know anything about that yet.

Someone hits him in the face. He gets up, ready to swing back. Wild horses couldn't pull him away from it.

Charlie is just a kid to, and he's staring, starting to try and say something.

Time _is_. 

A lot of things, probably. Inevitable is one of them.

  
*

Every sign they have ever scrawled in the ground, written on paper or carved into a wooden doorframe, Charlie's blood on their hands as he asked favours to accompany them, every one of those Meyer learned first.

Meyer likes what he can learn from books. It's certain and tested for centuries and there are rules to it. It's suited to him, people say, more than once, not knowing how wrong they are. Wrong, if what happens behind his eyelids when he shuts them means anything.

Maybe it does, maybe it doesn't. He hasn't slept well in twenty three years, he's not sure anymore.

"Not anything," Benny says, pushing the topic, one night they're alone and everything is kind of okay. "You never saw me at all?"

"Not before we met," Meyer says quiet. He glances across at Charlie. "Or you."

"But you do now?"

"Yes," Meyer informs him, "unfortunately."

Benny cackles out loud and abandons the line of questioning in favour of whiskey, but Charlie is looking at him serious. 

"Not even- about-"

"No," Meyer says. They were just kids. It was all just honest.

"Oh," Charlie says, looking oddly pleased.

They never need to know that they are the only ones he never saw before they met, or wonder that if that wasn't true if he'd have given them the same amount of his time. He doesn't know the answer to that, and it frightens him sometimes, late at night and waking from something else he saw.

Books are certain, tested for centuries and there are rules to them. He prefers them.

Tonight he's not reading. He's stealing a few minutes sleeping slumped in the back of the car. Benny is next to him, Charlie driving. Charlie takes a smoke then reaches back holding a lit cigarette, and Benny takes it easy. There is a word for that, in the books. A sign, rather. It's hard to draw. _gifts shared between kin_ , that one is a tricky fucker to do.

Meyer naps in a car, sees things, and learns more than anyone has ever taught him.

It's not what he'd prefer, but he's not going to stop paying attention. What it shows him isn't kind, but neither is he. Not now he has two reasons to be relentless.


	6. no time yet

  
People ask about New York.

Verrazzano is dead a long time ago and no one cares about the fur trade or the dutch, not anymore, except if you ask the city. It has a long memory.

It has a lot of memories, under the tiles, under the stones. Nothing like this isn't built on stories. It has memories, and it is making new ones, and not scared of that either.

People ask about New York. They just want a recommendation for dinner. They get it, and never realise.

This city is making new memories, and no one knows it yet, but it sees the kids that are going to make it happen.

People ask about New York.

After a while, and for a time, the answer is Luciano.

  
*

  
At twelve, Meyer is extremely sure of himself, and certain.

"Put it in the middle," he says with gritted teeth. It's cold. It's winter. Marks made in snow do not last long.

"This is stupid," Benny says, and passes over a few dollars and a very nice skipping stone without further protest.

"Well," Charlie says, with that little half-smile. That half-smile is an albatross, that half-smile has been singing the world a warning since 1798, Coleridge was letting them know. Meyer is sure of it. "Okay," Charlie says.

Charlie pulls the cross that confirmed him from his wrist and puts it in a space of snow like it's nothing, with Benny's coins around, and looks Meyer right in the eyes.

"Okay, now what?"

  
*

  
"Shit," Charlie says, struggling to find his way out of a bedsheet. "Fuck. I'm late."

"Yeah," Meyer says placidly. He could probably help. This is more entertaining.

"Fuck you," Charlie tells him, without heat. "Is this shirt-"

"Fine." Meyer relents and walks over. Fixes Charlie's collar. He never pretended he wasn't this particular kind of weak.

It is kind of important it's the right shirt. Today, Charlie is going to walk with his head held high, make promises he doesn't care about and kiss a ring to show it. Come into his own.

The old hands of New York are making decisions. Old men drenched in blood even if it wasn't on their hands each time, but Charlie feels it. Charlie feels all of it. They have mistaken Charlie for a pawn and he will play the part until Meyer nods and he suddenly moves as royal, promotion in hand. Yeah. He's lucky.

Meyer fixes Charlie's collar.

"Are you okay?"

"Sure," Charlie says, smiling a bit lopsided, "I am a Sicilian son."

"Charlie."

"It's fine," Charlie tells him, hand gentle at Meyer's knuckles. Tracing shapes in a sideways plea for peace. "I'm good at lying. I'm going to be great at this."

Meyer lets him go this time. 

Meyer lets him go this time only because he has not yet figured out how to make sure Charlie never has to lie again.

Not quite yet.

  
*

Charlie's a good boy. He's good at making nice, doing what he's told. Well practiced. Proficient at being what is needed, and hiding the bruises that come along with it. 

Now is not one of those times.

He excuses himself in the middle of dinner with Masseria to go to the bathroom, and listens until the gunshots stop.

He walks out, drying his hands.

"Okay," he says eventually, and Benny, who kept shooting enough after it was done to make a mess, nods. War is over.

"Okay," Benny tells him right back, grinning.

Meyer said to play it clean. Benny leaves a playing card in a dead man's hand for the cameras. Of course he does. It's Benny.

He does, and Meyer doesn't care. The albatross was only good luck until some idiot killed it.

Meyer has no intention to make mistakes, because he has two good reasons not to. Knowing that he will fail is not the same thing as not trying.

*

  
Meyer is twelve, pretending to be extremely sure of himself, pretending to be certain.

He calls on everything he has ever read to make the sign flare bright, and something sparkles a bit, there's something. Probably nothing. It looks impressive, at least.

"Us," he says, in case wishes are allowed.

"Us," Charlie echoes immediately.

"Yeah," Benny says, holding on to their hands still. "Okay. Us."

Meyer is twelve, Benny is younger. Charlie is perhaps old enough to know better. He catches at the sky and pretends nothing he catched burned.

"Nice work," he says, and means it.

"Shut up," Meyer tells him.

It's his first try and probably means nothing, but it happens, in New York snow. It starts there.

*

People ask about New York.

New York is Charlie being god-touched, a lucky one, New York is Meyer as his shadow who doesn't ever stop and New York, sometimes, is Benny, that guy is crazy.

Everyone knows about New York.

Well, after a while, everyone does.


End file.
